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things which otherwise you would overlook. At the same time, they point you to the great and all-wise Creator, that you may admire and love him who has made every thing for our highest happiness and good.
But slavery depends for its existence and growth upon the ignorance of its miserable victims. If Tidy's questions had been answered, and her curiosity satisfied, she would have gone on in her investigations; and from studying objects in nature, she would have come to study books, and perhaps would have read the Bible, and thus found out a great deal which it is not considered proper for a slave to know.
"We couldn't keep our servants, if we were to instruct them," says the slaveholder; and therefore he makes the law which constitutes it a criminal offense to teach a slave to read.
But Tidy was taught to WORK. That is just what slaves are made for,-- to work, and so save their owners the trouble of working themselves. Slaveholders do not recognize the fact that God designed us all to work, and has so arranged matters, that true comfort and happiness can only be reached through the gateway of labor. It is no blessing to be idle, and let others wait upon us; and in this respect the slaves certainly have the advantage of their masters.
Tidy was an apt learner, and at eight years of age she could do up Miss Matilda's ruffles, clean the great brass andirons and fender in the sitting-room, and set a room to rights as neatly as any person in the house.

CHAPTER IV.
SEVERAL EVENTS.
SHALL I pause here in my narrative to tell you what became of Annie and some of the other persons who have been mentioned in the preceding chapters?
Tidy often saw her mother. Miss Lee used to visit Mr. Carroll's family, and never went without taking Tidy, that the child and her mother might have a good time together. And good times indeed they were.
When Annie learned that her baby had been taken to Rosevale, that she was so well cared for, and that they would be able sometimes to see one another, her grief was very much abated, and she began to think in what new ways she could show her love for her little one. She saved all the money she could get; and, as she had opportunity, she would buy a bit of gay calico, to make the child a frock or an apron. Mothers, you perceive, are all alike, from the days of Hannah, who made a "little coat" for her son Samuel, and "brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to the yearly sacrifice," down to the present time. Nothing pleases them more than to provide things useful and pretty for their little ones. Even this slave-mother, with her scanty means, felt this same longing. It did her heart good to be doing something for her child; and so she was constantly planning and preparing for these visits, that she might never be without something new and gratifying to give her. In the warm days of summer, she would take her down to Sweet-Brier Pond, a pretty pool of water right in the heart of a sweet pine grove, a little way from the house, and Tidy would have a good splashing frolic in the water, and come out looking as bright and shining as a newly-polished piece of mahogany. Her mother would press the water from her dripping locks, and turn the soft, glossy hair in short, smooth curls over her fingers, put on the new frock, and then set her out before her admiring eyes, and exclaim in her fond motherly pride,--
"You's a purty cretur, honey. You dun know noffin how yer mudder lubs ye."
Tidy remembers to this day the delightful afternoon thus spent the very last time she went to see her mother, though neither of them then thought it was to be the last. Mr. Carroll, Annie's master, was very close in all his business transactions, never allowing, as he remarked, his left hand to know what his right hand did. He stole Tidy away, as we have already told you, from her mother; and this was the way he usually managed in parting his slaves, especially any that were much valued. He said it was "a
part of his religion to deal TENDERLY with his people!"
"'Tis a great deal better," said he, "to avoid a row. They would moan and wail and make such a fuss, if they knew they were to change quarters."
Humane man, wasn't he?
Mr. Carroll got into debt, and an opportunity occurring, he sold Annie and her four boys. The bargain was made without the knowledge of any one on the estate; and in the night they were